Sky News Regional News

Does anyone think that Sky News should do regional news service, is there a market for it, or should they leave it to the BBC and ITV. I think it would be nice to see a daily regional programme from Sky, because I find the BBC and ITV stuff so boring I never watch it. But I doubt that this is fesable at the moment, but if they want to expand their UK coverage I think it would be a way to go.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on there these days. It seems to me that Sky News Ireland may have been testing the water for a Sky News Scotland/Sky News Wales service, but I doubt this would ever happen to be honest.

I think that Sky should improve on their presentation at the moment, their breaking news coverage just seems a bit lacklusture at the moment.

As much as I like Sky News, I agree that they have become a bit stale. There seems little point in them having different programme names, i.e. Sunrise, Live at Five, because they all seem the same, with the same news stories. I hope they freshen up their presentation and go back to the punch they had back in 2001 or so.

Sunrise is a news service that sort of mixes in with a breakfast show. – They have the showbiz news etc.

Sky News Today is a more concise version, giving the news on the half hour. Over here a lot of pubs and restaurants have sky news on during that time, so people have lunches at different hours.

Then after that you get back to the traditional news. You can note the difference when Live at Five comes on.

You see, Sky have to realise that I might turn on my TV @ 4PM, now somone may have been watching since 3, but they have to fill me in on whats happening and then expand for the prerson thats been watching since 3 and I believe that Sky News do that very well.

I suppose you are right, Mr Byrne. I still think it would be nice to see the different shows have a more individual feel, perhaps their own idents and graphics would be good. Sunrise should be presented in a soft set and a better evening schedule brought in because I think that is repetative.

Ah yes, but you see some might tune in at 5 for the roudn of of the days events, others might tune in at 6, others at 7, others at 8, others at 9 – see the pattern? It depends what time you get back from work at or what time you get round to watching the news.

Back to the original point, I think it’s a bad idea. Don’t forget ITV only do regional news at it’s current scale becasue they are contractually and legally obliged. Actually so too the Beeb. The viewing figures wouldn’t be there for Sky. It just wouldn’t work.I think though that they ought to think about a revamp for SNI, whilst on this subject. People tune into Sky News for rolling news – right? So why do they want to tune into SNI for there evening “round-up” bulliten when RTE do such a fine job already? They should have a rolling news service – say 6-8 and 9-11. It would be in general terms what they see on the UK version with a Irish slant. Therefore not taking up many more resources – perhaps invest in a sports news correspondent/presenter. Just an idea.

Sky News Ireland does need more than one presenter, and a weekend service, but that’s a seperate topic altogether.

And there is nothing wrong with Sky having the days top stories at the TOP of the hour, that’s fair enough, but at the bottom of the hour (evenings primarily) they should have other programmes of relavence to people, for example, business or world news. Some of us would like a more indepth look at affairs across the globe without having to muddle through the disjointed and over saturated schedule of channels like CNN international. A half hour programme at 8.30 or 9.30, or whatever would be more than adequate.

And besides the vast majority of people who have Sky News have access to Sky News Active, which show the headlines on a continuous loop, does this need to be duplicated on the channel itself for the full 24 hours of a day.

I think that the Sky News Active video feeds need a rethink. It’s ok having news, sport, business, weather etc on it, but I think that changing the News feed to a CNN Headline News style channel would be better – i.e. more depth in the news stories, lasting half an hour or so, and repeating itself, with tickers and text info like Sky Sports News.